Road Trip Report

A road trip to Quebec usually includes a stop at the Navistar International dealer in Rivière-du-Loup, QC. Aside from a number of new Lone Stars lined up on Temiscouata Blvd, there were a couple of interesting units in the back lot.

A beefy AWD plow special was awaiting a new spreader body. Note the "blind" hood with no headlight openings. The headlights are mounted on wands, high above the plow frame.

New HX awaits installation of a body. Also painted in highway department yellow, it has perforations in the bumper for some purpose, perhaps hydraulics. The bumper projects out about a foot ahead of the fender line.

There are "Binders" in other parts of the Province too:

Lone Stars are fairly rare so a quick "grab shot" was necessary for this chip hauler at Pointe-au-Pic. Too bad I didn't take a video - those large diameter pipes were nearly deafening at close range.

The HX model is also popular for the heavy work and the Clermont, QC dealer has a special painted version on display.

A favourite of mine has always been the Paystar 5000 model from the 1970s. A preserved former Quebec highways unit still sees regular use hauling firewood. I like to check in on it every year to see that it is still running, so you will have seen pictures of it here before.

Another oldie, which from the fleet number is either a 2001 or a 2005 (likely the former) is this Eagle with plow fittings.

Getting a major refit, it should be on the road before the snow arrives.

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Kenworth - Quebec Loyalty

Both Kenworth and Peterbilt are assembled at a mammoth PACCAR (Pacific Car and Foundry) plant in Ste-Therese, QC. Although only medium duty Kenworth T120, T270 and T370s are assembled there now, there is still a lot of brand loyalty in Quebec for the heavier rigs.

Thus many KWs make their way to the Simard Suspensions shop in Baie St-Paul, QC. a recent sampling:

Interesting to see a red frame, maybe the rest of this hauler will get the same treatment.

 Not visible in the photo is a large notch in the sleeper roof, indicating a likely crane installation.

The big tombstone grille is still popular.

Autocars - Volvo Era - on the road trip

Original White Autocars are pretty rare, but even the late model Volvo Autocars are seldom seen, but I keep my road trip eyes open.

This semi with dump trailer was taking at lunch break at the Tim Horton's /Shell at the east side of Moncton / Dieppe, NB. Note the skid plate - once an Autocar trademark.

A twin steer dumper near Quebec City was idle for the last weekend of the construction holiday. It does not wear the Volvo diagonal rad bar (it may have been removed).

The rad, headlight frames and even the famed monogram were nicely picked out in red.

Volvo built nearly identical trucks without the Autocar radiator/grille, such as this pristine straight operated by Miller paving, also seen in Moncton, NB. It normally tows a draw bar trailer carrying a roller.

Volvo produced Autocar branded trucks from 1981 to 2001 before selling the trade name.

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Road Report, Western Stars

A recent trip to Quebec, also known as Western Star country, turned up a number of interesting Stars.

Many if not most timber haulers seem to to be Western Stars, and this one is typical of the heavy rigs.

What better to load the logs than a Western Star equipped with a Barko grabber.

There are also lots of long haul Stars on the road, including this deluxe unit with massive moose bars and extra lighting.

There are also numerous plane jane Stars, such as this day cab peat moss hauler.

There are Western Stars back home in Halifax too,

Atlantic Tiltload runs thus twin steer crane equipped unit that is kept busy with odd loads.

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CN 100

Canadian National Railway is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and as part of that they are setting up exhibits in various places across the country. Today it was a parking lot near the Halifax waterfront and score of CN's intermodal boxes of all shapes, sizes and colours, began arriving, for the most part using CN trucks.

CN has a large fleet of impressively painted trucks -of all brands it seems - no two were alike as far as as I could tell, and I did not see them all I am sure.

Navistar International BH74

Kenworth BN103

Freightliner BN135

Mack BH84

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Atlantic Truck Show, Moncton, NB June 7,8, 2019

All the major brands were represented, but not all were photograph-able due either to the tight spaces or the masses of people around the exhibits blocking the view. Apologies to Peterbilt and Volvo- their displays were just too popular!

I found most of the trucks on display indoors fairly unexciting. They were obviously demos and thus few had any custom paint schemes and there were no dramatically new models that I had not seen before.

Autocar

Freightliner

Navistar International

Kenworth

Mack

Western Star

It was a different story outside, where the trucks were supposed to be secondary to trailers or cranes or truck bodies, but they were real working trucks, and they were all Western Stars!

Then there was the parking lots where there were some real finds:

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Early Work

The Truckfax blog was established as a way to share my truck photos both past and present. In recent months I have not been taking pictures of trucks very often and even then they were of no particular interest or distinction. Weather of course was a factor - getting about in winter is less and less enjoyable.

While I have not exhausted my collection of past photos by any means, I seem to have shown the most interesting and the best.

Therefore - although this is a little late to announce it - Truckfax will be taking a break over the summer months too. This will allow a little time to accumulate some new material and perhaps work on some of the old photos to make them presentable.

The photo featured here is the first truck photo I ever took.

I do apologize for the quality, but there were extenuating circumstances. The 1957 Dodge pulling in on the right made me click a tad earlier than planned (and the truck was moving). That is my grandmother's 1957 Plymouth wagon on the left which was between me and the shot I really wanted. The camera was one of those ones you had to look down into to aim, so that is why the eye level is so low, and why I couldn't shoot over the car.

However it is the truck that was important. Single drive axle semis with tarp top, stake side, two axle trailers were pretty standard in those days. The C series Ford tilt cabs were still a bit of a novelyy since they had only been in production since 1957.
But it was the integral sleeper that was the real object of the photo. I am not sure that this was a factory option back then, but it was very rare. Certainly the first one I ever saw.  A similar, but windowless (and possibly plastic) sleeper of similar dimensions shows up in brochures in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The photo was taken on (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend while on a shopping trip to Buffalo, NY (stores there were open on the Monday), so it is a US truck. I believe the date is 1958 - both from memory and from the model year of the cars. (It's a 1958 Chevrolet in the background). Who would have suspected in 1958 that C-series tilt cabs would remain in production until 1990?

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